Gore Vidal's progress through the UK continues with an appearance at the Hay festival. He rolled on stage to warm applause yesterday, stick in hand, tie a little askew, collar escaping from the confines of his jacket, and carried on more or less where he'd left off in Brighton.

Vidal seems to want to answer every question with a quip, each one delivered with the timing of a born raconteur, each one greeted with a wave of comfortable laughter. For Hillary Clinton to be Barack Obama's vice president "would be embarrassing for everybody", John McCain is "intellectually in George W Bush's league", and his old age has brought not wisdom, but something else - "I think senility is the word you're looking for." He is less keen to answer at length, unless a question provides an opportunity for an anecdote, preferably one which gives a chance to throw in a brief imitation, whether of Jack Kennedy, Tennessee Williams or even Winston Churchill.

The wind, which flutters the flags pitched on the grass between the tents so picturesquely, buffets the canvas of the roof, rattling the metal supports so loudly that Vidal's answers are sometimes lost. He's not hearing so well, either - the audience's questions have to be laboriously relayed. When asked if he considers Christopher Hitchens to be the "new Gore Vidal" he declares that the "old Gore Vidal is not holding the door open", a response that gains a little poignancy when Hitchens rises from the audience to quiz him about his line on Bush and 9/11.

Vidal's battle against mortality is a good prelude to Julian Barnes's session half an hour later. Barnes is an author who has invited death along with him - his latest book combines memoir and essay to investigate the loss of his parents and his own fear of death.

When Barnes appears on the smaller Guardian stage, he begins with a brief reading from his latest book Nothing to be Frightened Of, and quickly engages his audience in a way that Vidal could not.

Compact in a smart black suit and a white shirt - no tie for Barnes - he creates a reflective mood which withstands the occasional whoops and hollers from the tent next door. For a moment, as he reads about seeing his mother's corpse, it seems as if he might begin to cry, but he handles his text's transitions from wry humour to touching revelation so deftly that it is difficult to believe he was on the brink of tears, until he confirms it after the reading is finished.

Barnes is much happier to consider questions, and to discourse at length rather than aim for the quick gag - though here, of course the discussion revolves around his writing rather than the state of the world. He uses his hands with precision as he talks, drawing round and square brackets in the air as he describes an email from his brother, a professional philosopher.

He speaks about the book's construction, his fear of death and his admiration for the way the French have dealt with both sex and death in a way the British never have. His journey from the atheism of his 20s to the agnosticism of his 50s and 60s is explained not as the initial stages of a journey towards God, but rather as "a recognition of ignorance". He's "distrustful" of professional atheists, even though some of them are great friends.

A questioner from the floor asks if writing the book has helped with his fear of death, and he explains that he never expected it to. "I don't believe in writing as therapy."